Republicans Approve CAFTA

News Wire
The Republican led House approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement early Thursday. The 217-215 vote just after midnight adds six Latin American countries to the lists of nations with "free" trade agreements with the United States. The Bush administration signed the accord, known as CAFTA, a year ago with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, and the Senate approved it last month. It now goes to the president for his signature.

Why CAFTA Should Have Been Defeated:

American Sovereignty and Increased Illegals

• Taken together, the six CAFTA nations have a minuscule consumer economy — but represent a huge pool of low-wage labor. Thus the only export encouraged by CAFTA would be U.S. manufacturing jobs.
• CAFTA is a critical steppingstone toward creation of a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an embryonic regional government modeled after the socialistic European Union.
• Under CAFTA, barriers to agricultural imports from our "trading partners" would be removed immediately, while barriers to U.S. exports wouldn't be lifted for anywhere from 10-20 years — thereby crippling U.S. agricultural producers. And this precedent would almost certainly be followed in the FTAA.
• Promoters of CAFTA clearly perceive the pact to be a form of foreign aid to "emerging democracies" in Central America — tacitly recognizing that it wouldn't result in genuine free trade, but rather a huge transfer of wealth from the U.S. to the region.
• CAFTA: Exporting American Jobs & Industry

Posted by Editor at July 28, 2005 08:30 AM